hi guys today we're talking about an argument that first or later you will have to face how to scale your 3d printing farm if you have one or more printers and decide to scale to more machines you may think that just adding another printer will do the trick well ain't that easy you see when rigging up a 3d printing farm you will have boundaries dictated mostly by the products you're making and your environment if you don't want to face problems in the future these five principles on how to scale your 2d printing business will help you make better decisions i'm richard this is 3d printing for money the channel that helps you make more money with your 2d printer or printers why on only at a one point if you start getting a lot of orders and requests you must have your form optimizer for fast scalability and bring down time to the minimum believe me it sucks to be in a situation where you have to fulfill many orders and have to deal with broken printers issues or worse the wrong printer these principles will work the best if you already have a knowledge in 3d printers and moving first steps in creating a 3d printer farm if you already own a 3d printing farm let me know in the comments how you manage your 3d printing farm first principle for scaling a farm rig a 3d printer farm with a printer model you already know i see many people with one or two printers that get a third one and tear their hair out to figure out how to make it work properly a good knowledge of a cartesian printer like an under three approves of cr10 automatically doesn't translate to a hassle-free experience with a corrective printer and vice versa adding a printer you're very familiar with will allow you to solve possible issues down the road and if you really want a different printer the extensive testing before starting to print your products after you iron the things you don't like and made it a reliable machine for your standards then you can consider adding it to your farm but my personal best advice is to have a farm of the same printer having the same printer will ease modding if your printers are in stock remember your objective in a 3d printing form is to optimize 3d printing production not to test and tear machines apart i hardly know anyone that leaves your printer stock but from a production standpoint you will waste less time doing what already you know instead of guessing the result of the modifications even more having one printer type will allow you to create only one g-code for every product slicing in save doesn't require much time maybe a couple of minutes to figure out orientation infills supports brim other parameters but if you have to do different g-codes for all the printers for hundreds of items you got a time management problem point number two scale based it on your current needs don't add a printer for the joy of having a shiny paperweight if you own it a delivery company and bought with your money 100 delivery trucks how would it feel to have 50 trucks collecting dust on the parking lot apply the same principle here the worst thing that you can do is having a printer that stays off for weeks straight add a machine when you need a machine not when you want a machine or would like a machine as for point number one if you need to scale it is because you need to print specific items if you're printing cookie cutters two smaller machines will do better than one huge core exci if you overshoot and get a printer you aren't familiar with there's a high chance it will end collecting dust talking from personal experience here point number three besides printers materials are another big factor in pharmacists storage is a huge thing too commonly overlooked it doesn't matter if you're running resin or filament you have to keep your materials dry in a warmish temperature 99 of materials issues is related to poor storage trust me show me affiliate print and if material is to blame usually is caused by improper storage for filaments humidity is the worst enemy and all materials are affected by that i make a huge warning on this topic in my book 3d printing for money if you want to check it out link in description by the way and similar precautions must be taken also for resins cold temperatures below 20 celsius affect viscosity of the resin and if not preheated once pourings in the raisin tray it underperforms causing delamination and artifacts i'm not personally a huge fan of preheating the reason with heat guns hot water or other systems before you print because they will a take time and b in the past i saw that a high increase of temperature in a short time affects the resin and gave me very funky results many people developed cheap solutions to seal the material with plastics boxes or buying fairly expensive solutions like a filament dryer like this one and this one if from a hobby's point of view it may be viable if you have 200 plus rolls of filament and 30 50 bottles of raisin you can see that cost goes off the chart as always the easier solution is the cheapest after you finish the print grab your roll and put it back in the plastic bag it came in amount spent zero dollars for resins a cardboard box placing near a heat source or a wall heater is enough if you have spare wardrobe you can make wonders for both in my printer farm i have shelving with rows of printers and on top and below a smaller role just for materials i optimized my workflow to eliminate packing and unpacking and most of the time i run an entire roll straight in a couple of days just wrapping print surfaces and starting again the printer this continuous printing decreases load and unload tasks that can drain your time very easily also keep the materials near your printers like a normal length you don't have to go physically anywhere just reach down or up we talked about the hardware later optimization let's see how to manage a form with remote software point number four software automation setting up a remote controllable environment can help you shave a little time like preheating the printers via wi-fi if you are elsewhere checking out the printers with a camera and detect issues with algorithms like spaghetti detective in the future i'll make a video on softwares for form optimization but for 90 of applications the most straightforward setup is composed by a smart plug a raspberry pi a camera in the room and a fume detector this setup will allow you to shut on or off the printers with a smart plug with your cell phone and start printing from another room with octoprint the camera can give you extra feedback when needed or assess if there's the necessity of an intervention the fume detector is the last resort before a possible fire but with today's print a fire is a very remote case but you know the drill better safe than sorry we will talk more about software optimization but what is your favorite 3d printing software for controlling remotely your printers let me know in the comments point number five mountains the elephant in the room simply said a well-maintained printer will grant you fewer printing problems and the well-maintained form will grant you a workplace that requires less human intervention as far as i see it less time spent in the printing room the better i can compromise on speed i can compromise on printing time but i won't compromise on my personal time time is the most valuable resource and from a business standpoint i prefer to dedicate my energies to more valuable tasks than putting the repair hat on and spending hours repairing or figuring issues with the printers i think you get it i'm a huge fan of preventive maintenance it is better to invest five minutes in a checkup than one hour in lead maintenance in my printer farm i carry out maintenance based on printing time for easing the process and to not forget what i did weeks prior i use a maintenance plan and this plan from today is freely downloadable i'll put a link in description this maintenance plan can be compiled by hand over excel based on your personal preference and this configuration it holds two printers for a 750 hour span about a month of continuous printing and i suggest you to tag or name your printers so it's easier to remember what you did on all machines as you can see it has a 250 hour milestone about 10 days a 500 hour one three weeks and 751 about one month bear in mind that these are printing hours if your printer for some reason stays off for entire week you can delay the checkup all the milestones have a box where you can insert the date when you did the last checkup so you will know when it was the last time you did maintenance there is also a section for notes where i write things that i'm sure that after a month i've already forgotten i'm a human and forget things so guys these are the five principles to help you manage better your 3d printing farm with these 5 tips you can increase your productivity and waste less time down the road how do you manage your 3d printing farm let me know down in the comments if you found these principles helpful subscribe for more content that will help you in your 3d printing journey this is all for today stay sharp stay safe and see you in the next one you